The Yacht Club; or, The Young Boat-Builder by Oliver Optic (important books to read txt) 📗

joke; but I want to say that I respect the man who did it, whoever he is."

"Self-respect is a gentlemanly quality. The man who don't respect himself will not be respected by others," said Laud, stroking his chin.

"Eh?"

Laud confidently repeated the proposition.[256]

"You respect yourself, and of course you respect the man that pounded Hasbrook," he added.

"Do you mean to say I flogged Hasbrook?" demanded the strange man, doubling his fist, and shaking it savagely in Laud's face.

"It isn't for me to say that you did, for you know better than I do; but you will pardon me if I say that the evidence points in this direction. Hasbrook has been over to Belfast several times to work up his case. The last time I saw him he was looking for Don John, who, I am afraid, is rather leaky."

In spite of his bluff manners, Laud saw that the captain was not a little startled by the information just imparted.

"The miserable little psalm-singer," growled the strange man, walking the room, muttering to himself. "If he disobeys my orders, I'll thrash him worse than—Hasbrook was thrashed."

"It is unpleasant to be suspected of a crime, and revolting to the instincts of a gentleman," added Laud.

"Do you mean to say that I am suspected of a crime, you long-eared puppy?" yelled the captain.

"I beg your pardon, Captain Shivernock, but it[257] isn't agreeable to a gentleman to be called by such opprobrious names," said Laud, rising from his chair, and taking his round-top hat from the table. "I am willing to leave you, but not to be insulted."

Laud looked like the very impersonation of dignity itself, as he walked towards the door.

"Stop!" yelled the captain.

"I do not know that any one but Hasbrook suspects you of a crime," Laud explained.

"I'm glad he does suspect me," added the strange man, more gently. "Whoever did that job served him just right, and I envy the man that did it."

"Still, it is unpleasant to be suspected of a crime."

"It wasn't a crime."

"People call it so; but I sympathize with you, for like you I am suspected of a crime, of which, like yourself, I am innocent."

"Are you, indeed? And what may your crime be, Mr. Cavendish?"

"It is in this connection that I wish to state my particular business with you."[258]

"Go on and state it, and don't be all night about it."

"I may add that I also came to warn you against the movements of Hasbrook. I will begin at the beginning."

"Begin, then; and don't go round Cape Horn in doing it," snarled the captain.

"I will, sir. Captain Patterdale—"

"Another miserable psalm-singer. Is he in the scrape?"

"He is, sir. He has lost a tin box, which contained nearly fourteen hundred dollars in cash, besides many valuable papers."

"I'm glad of it; and I hope he never will find it," was the kindly expression of the eccentric nabob for the Christian nabob. "Was the box lost or stolen?"

"Stolen, sir."

"So much the better. I hope the thief will never be discovered."

Laud did not say how he happened to know that the tin box had been stolen, for Captain Patterdale, the deputy sheriff, and Nellie were supposed to be the only persons who had any knowledge of the fact.[259]

"It appears that in this tin box there was a certain fifty-dollar bill, which had been torn into four parts, and mended by pasting two strips of paper upon it, one extending from right to left, and the other from top to bottom, on the back."

"Eh?" interposed the wicked nabob. "Wait a minute."

The captain opened an iron safe in the room, and from a drawer took out a handful of bank bills. From these he selected three, and tossed them on the table.

"Like those?" he inquired, with interest.

"Exactly like them," replied Laud, astonished to find that each was the counterpart of the one he had paid Donald for the Juno, and had the "white cross of Denmark" upon it.

"Do you know how those bills happened to be in that condition, Mr. Cavendish?" chuckled the captain.

"Of course I do not, sir."

"I'll tell you, my gay buffer. I have got a weak, soft place somewhere in my gizzard; I don't know where; if I did, I'd cut it out. About three months ago, just after I brought from Portland one hundred of these new fifty-dollar bills,[260] there was a great cry here for money for some missionary concern. I read something in the newspaper, at this time, about what some of the missionaries had done for a lot of sailors who had been cast away on the South Sea Islands. I thought more of the psalm-singers than ever before, and I was tempted to do something for them. Well, I actually wrote to some parson here who was howling for money, and stuck four of those bills between the leaves. I think it is very likely I should have sent them to the parson, if I hadn't been called out of the room. I threw the note, with the bills in it, on the table, and went out to see a pair of horses a jockey had driven into the yard for me to look at. When I came back and glanced at the note, I thought what a fool I had been, to think of giving money to those canting psalm-singers. I was mad with myself for my folly, and I tore the note into four pieces before I thought that the bills were in it. But Mrs. Sykes mended them as you see. Go on with your yarn, my buffer."

"That bill I paid to Don John for the Juno," continued Laud. "He paid it to Mr. Leach, the sail-maker, who paid it to Captain Patterdale, and[261] he says it was one of the bills in the tin chest when it was stolen. Don John says he had it from me."

"Precisely so; and that is what makes it unpleasant to be suspected of a crime," laughed Captain Shivernock. "But you don't state where you got the bill, Mr. Cavendish. Perhaps you don't wish to tell."

"I shall tell the whole story with the greatest pleasure," added Laud. "I was sailing one day down by Haddock Ledge, when I saw a man tumble overboard from a boat moored where he had been fishing. He was staving drunk, and went forward, as I thought, to get up his anchor. The boat rolled in the sea, and over he went. I got him out. The cold water sobered him in a measure, and he was very grateful to me. He went to his coat, which he did not wear when he fell, and took from his pocket a roll of bills. He counted off ten fifties, and gave them to me. Feeling sure that I had saved his life, I did not think five hundred dollars was any too much to pay for it, and I took the money. I don't think he would have given me so much if he hadn't been drunk. I asked him who he was, but he would not tell me,[262] saying he didn't want his friends in Boston to know he had been over the bay, and in the bay; but he said he had been staying in Belfast a couple of days."

"Good story!" laughed the wicked nabob.

"Every word of it is as true as preaching," protested Laud.

"Just about," added the captain, who hadn't much confidence in preaching.

"You can see, Captain Shivernock, that I am in an awkward position," added Laud. "I have no doubt the man I saved was the one who stole the tin box. He paid me with the stolen bills."

"It is awkward, as you say," chuckled the strange man. "I suppose you wouldn't know the fellow you saved if you saw him."

"O, yes, I think I should," exclaimed Laud. "But suppose, when Captain Patterdale comes to me to inquire where I got the marked bill, I should tell him this story. He wouldn't believe a word of it."

"He would be a fool if he did," exclaimed Captain Shivernock, with a coarse grin. "Therefore, my gay buffer, don't tell it to him."[263]

"But I must tell him where I got the bill," pleaded Laud.

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the eccentric, shaking his sides as though they were agitated by a young earthquake. "Tell him I gave you the bill!"

The captain seemed to be intensely amused at the novel idea; and Laud did not object; on the contrary, he seemed to appreciate the joke. It was midnight when he left the house, and went to the Juno to sleep in her cabin. If he had gone home earlier in the evening, he might have seen Captain Patterdale, who did him the honor to make a late call upon him.[264]

CHAPTER XV. LAUD CAVENDISH TAKES CARE OF HIMSELF.

Donald did not sleep very well in the cabin of the Maud, not only because his bed was very hard and uncomfortable, but because he was troubled; and before morning he fully realized the truth of the saying, in regard to certain persons, that "they choose darkness, because their deeds are evil." He wished he had not consented to keep the secret of either Captain Shivernock or Laud Cavendish, and was afraid he had compromised himself by his silence. When he turned out in the morning, he believed he had hardly slept a wink all night, though he had actually slumbered over six hours; but a person who lies awake in the darkness, especially if his thoughts are troublesome, lengthens minutes into hours. But Donald welcomed the morning light when he awoke, and the bright sun which streamed through the[265] trunk ports. He went to the shop, and for two hours before his men arrived worked on the tender of the Maud.

The mast of the yacht was stepped during the forenoon, and after dinner the rigger came to do his part of the work. Samuel Rodman was now so much interested in the progress of the labor on the new yacht, that he spent nearly all his time on board of her. The top mast, gaff, and boom were all ready to go into their places, and the Maud looked as though she was nearly completed. All the members of the Yacht Club were impatient for her to be finished, for the next regatta had been postponed a week, so that the Maud could take part in the affair; and the club were to go on a cruise for ten days, after the race.

There was no little excitement in the club in relation to the Maud. Donald had confidently asserted his belief, weeks before, that she would outsail the Skylark, not as a mere boast, but as a matter of business. His father had made an improvement upon the model of the Sea Foam, which he was reasonably certain would give her the advantage. The young boat-builder had also remedied a slight defect in the arrangement of the[266] centre-board in the Maud, had added a little to the size of the jib and mainsail, and he hoped these alterations would tell in favor of the new craft, while they would not take anything from her stiffness in heavy weather.

"I believe the old folks are as much interested in the next race as the members of the club, Don John," said Rodman, one day, as he came upon the wharf.

"I am glad they are," replied Donald, laughing. "It will make business good for Ramsay & Son."

"Half a dozen of them are going to make up a first prize of one hundred dollars for the regatta; so that the winner of the race will make a good thing by it," added Rodman.

"That will be a handsome prize."

"If the Maud takes it, Don John, the money shall be yours, as you are to sail her."

"O, no!" exclaimed Donald. "I don't believe in that. The prize will belong to the boat."

"If you win the race in the Maud, I shall be satisfied with the glory, without any of the spoils."

"Well, we won't quarrel about it now, for she may not win the first prize."

"Well, the same gentlemen will give a second[267] prize of fifty dollars," continued Rodman. "But don't you expect to get the first prize, Don John?"

"I do; but to expect is not always to win, you know."

"You have always talked as though you felt pretty sure of coming in first," said Rodman, who did not like to see any abatement of confidence on the part of the boat-builder.

"It is the easiest thing in the world to be mistaken, Sam. If the Maud loses the first prize, I may as well shut up shop, and take a situation in a grocery store, for my business would be ruined."

"Not quite so bad as that, I hope," added Rodman.

"Mr. Norwood is waiting to see how she sails, before he orders a yacht for Frank. Can't you invite Frank and his father to sail with us in the race?"

"Certainly, if you desire it, Don John,"